Basically, when I went to school in Sri Lanka from age five onward, the classes there were sometimes sorted into a hierarchy of your skin tone. So the fairer-skinned kids sat at the front row, and the darker-skinned kids sat at the back by the poor ones who played out in the street all day long.

Every day, we get concerned about the age of the school buses in this county. You've got to keep in mind that they're built as buses to start with, and they carry young people who may not treat them as if they were their very own, so to have these buses running 13 or 14 years ... is not the best way to do business.

My favorite days were when I had a cold and could stay home from school and draw all day long.

I was shot at for being a Tamil in Sri Lanka, and then, everyone was calling me a Paki in London, and I'm not even Pakistani.

I try to create an atmosphere that makes kids want to learn and come to school every day.

I'm not a person that's walkin' down the street looking mean all day.